Vatican criticises Italy plans on gay,unwed couples

ROME, Dec 10 (Reuters) The Vatican said Italy's left sought to ''eradicate'' the traditional family by adding to its Christmas wish-list legislation that would give legal rights to unwed couples, including homosexual ones.

The Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, said in an editorial yesterday that politicians in the ruling centre-left coalition were embarking on a ''senseless battle''. They aim to put forward a bill by the end of January.

''Fifteen days to Christmas. And there are those making other calculations, thinking of other deadlines,'' it wrote in its weekend edition.

The headline read: ''Christmas 2006: To eradicate the family is the priority of Italian politics.'' Prime Minister Romano Prodi was elected in April on a campaign platform that included some sort of legal recognition of unwed couples. But he has so far stopped short of openly supporting gay marriage, a divisive issue in Catholic Italy.

He greeted a Senate motion on Thursday urging some recognition of heterosexual and homosexual couples as a ''step forward''. Equal Opportunity Minister Barbara Pollastrini said she would start working on a draft law in the coming days so it would be ready by the Senate's requested January deadline.

This outraged centre-right politicians. But the motion, partly a compromise after lawmakers dropped a measure about unwed couples' inheritance, has also stirred up controversy within Prodi's cabinet.

Justice Minister Clemente Mastella, who is also a senator, said in comments published by Italia media yesterday that he was ready to cast his first vote against the ruling majority unless the traditional family was fully protected.

Prodi's coalition governs with a narrow one-seat majority in the Senate and Mastella warned the ''Catholic part of the centre left'' could be swayed to side with the centre right.

The uproar also came just days after the city of Padua, in northern Italy's Catholic heartland, became the first in the country to allow unmarried heterosexuals and homosexuals to register formally as couples.

L'Osservatore Romano said it was ''hypocrisy'' for politicians to say they will safeguard the family and at the same time allow unwed couples equal footing.

''Even this is -- and we don't know how unknowingly -- a lie,'' it said.

REUTERS PB BST0858